The present invention relates to a tilting-segment radial bearing.
Because of the very fast-running shaft journals, which reach peripheral speeds up to 100 meters/second, and because of their low loading by the relatively light rotor, problems occur in the smooth running and stability of the shaft axle especially in plain bearings of turbochargers for supercharging vehicle engines. Floating sleeve bearings are normally used nowadays for such applications, which floating sleeve bearings comprise two cylindrical sleeves pushed into one another. If such a bearing is properly designed, experience shows that it will have good floating and stability behaviour. As far as the design calculation is concerned, the difficulties are in determining the relative sleeve speed; as far as practical utility is concerned, the difficulty is ensuring a supply of oil to the inner lubricating gap.
Tilting-segment bearing are essentially simpler in operation principle and easier to design; however, the known designs of such bearings are more expensive to manufacture and assemble and, so far as is known, have therefore not been used hitherto for the purpose mentioned.
Because of the abovementioned advantages of tilting-segment bearings in general, and in the form of tilting-segment radial bearings in particular, for mounting turbocharger rotors and such like, the invention originated from the object of developing a design of tilting-segment radial bearing which is advantageous for construction, simple and inexpensive manufacture and ease of assembly. The object is also to enable economical application of such bearings of smaller dimensions where simple sleeve bearings were used previously for reasons of cost.